Wikipedia talk:Portal/Archive 4

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Contents

Aesthetics

From Portal talk:Browse#Aesthetics:

I tried to change some of the aesthetics, and it looked much better, but now someone has rv-ed the changes.

I would say: *Lose the vertical bars; dots (·) are much more appealing and less intrusive. *Move the icons (which aren't even necessary, but I think they have been sufficiently discussed on Wikipedia's Main Page draft talk page) to the right of each category name. *Don't include links to actual articles – like "Americas" because this is a page for portals. *Make Sports and games the same size as the others, and don't indent it; it is not enough a part of culture to require the indentation. *People aren't stupid, and if we're going to label Sports and Games twice, they should be separate categories. *Even though I understand the logic behind capitalizing "Culture" and such, when "games" is not capitalized, it is aesthetically displeasing and should be standardized.

Overall, the page looks horrible as it stands, but it definitely has potential. - ElAmericano | talk 19:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I understand the concept of hierarchy, but I don't think we should sacrifice a good look just, say, to have sports 'under' the culture category. - ElAmericano | talk 04:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why we've allowed the misaligned category titles (in the portal browsers) to stand. We should make tables so that the pictures don't screw up the title alignment. - ElAmericano | talk 18:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Main page redesign

There is discussion going on now at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Usability/Main Page/Draft#Health portal and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Usability/Main Page/Draft#Portals about linking the portals (more prominently) from the main page to allow users to more easily browse Wikipedia.

Some of the concerns include:

  • The inconsistent quality of the major portals that are currently (or proposed) linked in the browse bar on the main page. In particular, the Portal:Health is quite primative and only recently been edited by User:Go for it! and myself. On the other portals, we should make sure the categories are all presented in a uniform style and position on the page. And, ensure each portal is regularly maintained and updated (e.g. switching the featured articles). I'll do what I can, particularly with Portal:Geography. --Aude (talk | contribs) 22:22, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Very good point. We should strive to get these up to be Featured Portals (nothing exists in a vacuum, does it? Or else we could focus on the Main Page alone!)--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 01:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
  • One other issue is the name of the "Society" portal. Is this supposed to encompass social sciences? I'm not sure I'd think to look under "Society" for economics or law. And where would I find popular culture (e.g. television, video games, sports, food & drink, etc.)? I might think to look under culture, but don't see these apparant on the Culture portal. This is all an issue of sorting topics, which is another important usability aspect of a website. --Aude (talk | contribs) 22:22, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
  • The Health Portal is NOT one of the Top 10 subjects. Waht justification does it have to be there? Put it as a subset of Science or even better Anatomy or the Medicine Portal. Unless it is recognized as an equaly important branch of Wikipedia, which it currently isn't, please DO NOT re add it. Those Portals are not chosen arbitrarily, but rather they were hand picked. health is a science; it falls under that category. It has no business being on the Main Page.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 21:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Agreed, but I think the real problem here is the whole "Top 10" thing - very crass and unprofessional. Wikipedia is not a Letterman bit. I like this top bar a lot, actually, but there's got to be a better way to have links to the portals. Zafiroblue05 22:00, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
    • The Top 10 category was created this month. (Before that, we had the Top 8.) You say that the portals "are not chosen arbitrarily, but rather they were hand picked," but I don't know what distinction you're drawing. Who decided what categories would be included, and why is this determination sacrosanct?
    • Note that I'm not arguing that the health portal should be included (because I'm not sure). —David Levy 22:09, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Actually, if the Portal:Health could be brought up to good quality, it would make more sense for Portal:Medicine to be merged into health, not vice versa. I am not really suggesting this, but health and health care are often confused, but are in fact quite different. The determinants of health go beyond health care and medicine; medicine is just one part of health. Thus, many universities have the fields of medicine, nursing, public health under the category of "health sciences." However, I agree that the health portal needs major revamping (see my comments on the discussion page) before it could be used to encompass the field of Medicine and other areas.--Chinawhitecotton 08:14, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to weigh in on the discussion. --Aude (talk | contribs) 22:22, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Portals: Who are they for

For a while, portals have been used as hubs for certain key categories, but my question is: Who are they meant for? If for the end users of our encyclopedia, I cannot understand why we have boxes such as "What you can do" in them. This seems more like something for a WikiProject. If, on the other hand, these portals are meant for our editors, they should not be touted as somethign for our end users. - ElAmericano | talk 18:42, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

They're for both editors and readers... just like Wikipedia in general. --CBD ☎ ✉ 18:52, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Your question is very good and timely, as in the ongoing Main page redesign discussion, links to the portals from the main page are being considered as a way of browsing and navigating through topics. In my opinion, I think portals are more for the end-user browsing for information on a particular topic, while WikiProjects and the Community Portal are meant more for editors. Portals (as they are now) may not be ideal for browsing, though. But, I don't think there is anything else on Wikipedia that can serve that purpose (the category pages aren't user-friendly). If portals are to be used to help people browse, I think we need some more standardization across portals (e.g. where on the page, the categories/subcategories are placed). Or suggestions on other ways to make it easier to browse and find topics? --Aude (talk | contribs) 19:03, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

What about main page configurability?

I have some questions about the possibility of users configuring the main page to fit their own tastes, and was wondering what options were available to users right now for accomplishing this. This pertains to portals in that different Main Page designs present differing access to portals. See the various main page replacement draft designs that are being voted on at the Main Page Redesign Project for instance (which the heading above leads to.) Please click on the heading above to see my questions on this subject. I look forward to reading your replies. --Go for it! 23:56, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Portals on other wikis

An increasing number of people running/working on other wikis appear to be coming upon Wikipedia's portals, thinking they look nice, and coming here to see how it's done. Unfortunately, the answer is basically "they just work", since the instructions (naturally) don't say what's been set up already to make it so easy. More unfortunately still, the templates in question use an absolutely hideous amount of nesting, so copying all the necessary parts to another wiki is all but impossible. They also make use of the fact that the Portal: namespace (which is a custom namespace on Wikipedia, not one that's set up "out of the box") has subpages set up, making things like {{/footer}} behave differently from they would in a "normal" page, and, well, who knows what other jiggery-pokery.

As a first move to ward off the questions hitting support forums about this, I've put an ugly disclaimer above the instructions on this page. What would be really nice is if someone who actually understands how it all works (someone must have set those templates up, right?) could put some instructions at meta: for people trying to reconstruct the achievements. Off the top of my head, such instructions would have to cover at least:

  1. relevant software settings ("Portal:" into $wgExtraNamespaces, and that namespace into $wgNamespacesWithSubpages; anything else?)
  2. a full list of the templates that would need to be copied (which could then be given to Special:Export)
  3. any custom CSS rules in MediaWiki:Common.css et al referenced from those templates

I know this is a big ask, but the info could of course be corrected over time if anyone had the confidence to write a "first draft". If no-one does, we'll just have to stick with the disclaimer, I think. - IMSoP 17:57, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Someone decided to take the time to answer newbie's Qs

IMSoP, whereas you simply state, it is too complex "don't ask" and discourage others to not ask, another user has spent their time explaning how these portal's actually work:

Three cheers to toykilla:

http://www.350z-tech.com/zwiki/Help:Portals

Forum: http://www.mwusers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6017

Signed: Travb 21:27, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Top level categories/portals

Should Health be included alongside to the top ten portals of Art, Culture, Geography, History, Mathematics, People, Philosophy, Science, Society and Technology? My view is that is should not be because it simply is not what one could consider "top level". I have reservations about whether it should exist at all: what is its point? should it be merged to, or made a sub-portal of Medicine? or is it intended to cover the personal life? Whatever its point, it shouldn't be on {{catbar}}, {{browsebar}}, or {{browsebar noblank}}. And whilst we are considering Health, are the top ten correct as they are, or are they contradictory (ie, is each justifiably top level, or could one or another be sub-portals the others)?--cj | talk 07:42, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Where did these subject categories come from anyways? Culture, People, Society, and Technology are the sections titles from a newspaper, and so is Health. The rest are university departments, which is why there is so much overlap between the two sets. The category names from a true knowledge hierarchy tend to be too long to put on the browsebar.

Also, what selection criteria did you use? Health is one of the most central issues there is. It is a central concern of most people every single day. So I want to hear your explanation that most people care more about Mathematics than they do about their own Health. Because I don't buy it. Do people care more about Art than Health? I hope not.

Health is definitely top level: top level in everyday importance, top level in domestic politics, top level as a world concern. It includes issues about eating, nutrition, exercise, safety, illness, medical treatment, and general wellbeing. How is this category not central nor "top"?? Please explain it to me. --Go for it! 08:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I think you have been placing the wrong criteria on Wikipedia's knowledge scheme. You are stuck on some logical structure issue, when the more important factors here are usefulness and topic coverage. We are trying to help users find what they are looking for in the least number of clicks. We also have a limited amount of space to work with (one line) unless we are willing to go to a two-line format, which I by the way, am not opposed to. --Go for it! 08:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

After experimenting with a two line format, I don't like it. I'll give in, Health is okay. But Economics is, though an important topic, a horrible portal. Fix it up and I'll consider it. --HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 23:47, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Religion should be a top level category

Despite some people maintaining that religion is merely a sub-branch of philosophy (which is technically correct), there are people out there who do not associate these concepts. It is for this reason that Religion should be offered as a separate option for those looking for info on religions such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism etc. Wikipedia is all about sharing knowledge with the masses, and the current state of affairs would doubtlessly be confusing to many.

If there is ultra-strong opposition to this proposal, then the Philosophy portal should at least have prominent links to its "sub-portals". In any case, something must change! Brisvegas 07:22, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Enact the latter. --cj | talk 08:27, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Agree. Religion shouldn't be a top level portal. Just not broad enough. savidan(talk) (e@) 03:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

three portal box header templates on MFD

The three portal box header templates Portal:Box-header-square, Portal:Box-header-groovy and Portal:Box-header-round are listed on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion today. Slambo (Speak) 12:06, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposals process

I've made a start to Wikipedia:Portal/Proposals in an attempt to set up a proposals process similar to Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals. Help in developing this would be much appreciated as such a mechanism is so dearly needed to halt the multitude of pointless portals created each week.--cj | talk 04:29, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I rm the transclusion of this proposal to the main project page. This is inappropriate:
  • No consensus has formed behind the proposal; and
  • The main project page is purely informational and well-established (since 2005 February 5). The proposal is just that: a new proposal for a new policy. The two are incompatible.
I should like to be able to support the proposal but, like most new proposals, it will require much work. Meanwhile, transcluding in-formation policy to an existing policy page would be wrong enough; this operation represents an alteration in function as well (from informational to policy) akin to a cross-namespace operation. Whatever the merits of the proposal I must resist this on grounds that it sets a bad precedent: We do not wish to see new proposals shoehorned into the project under the guise of let's-try-this. John Reid 17:57, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
John, the precedent has already been set by various other trialled proposals, WP:PROD, the semi protection and the barring of anons from creating pages being examples I can think of off the top of my head. The transcluding happens enough as well, but if you're not happy with that I'll just copy the whole thing in, policy pages have had sections with proposed tags on them before. It's not a cross-name space transclusion, since the page transcluded is a sub-page of this page. So I've restored the transcluded section, which is in use, and I would point out I think it's poor form to remove something which is being used without discussing it first. Hiding talk 19:03, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry, Hiding, but I think it's very poor form to start using something without discussing it first. You'd rather use it right away and force others to be the bad guy. I've tried to talk this over with you but you'd rather just go straight ahead. Well, as I've said before: If I'm right and it's important, then sooner or later some other editor will come along and fix it; I don't need to participate in a transclusion revert war. But I'm sorry to say you have lost any possibility of my support. John Reid 02:32, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Fair play. Mind, it was discussed and no serious objections came forward. If it trials and people use it and it helps wikipedia, I don't see a problem. If it trials, people don't use it and it disrupts wikipedia, it ends trial. I'm forcing nothing. If you don't like it, state why, I'm more interested in the merits of the proposal than any other argument, and you haven't as yet addressed those. Hiding The wikipedian meme 07:58, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Inter-Portal Links

It seems very odd to me that there are no direct links from many top-level portals to portals within that field. Consequently, I've been creating an in-page addition to the browsebar template so that portals can link to each other more obviously and accessibly. The first one was created at Portal:Classical Civilisation, and I've also added one to Portal:Religion, since it seems absurd that the religion portal did not link to portals on specific religions. Could I request that editors on other portals - particularly higher-level portals (I'm not too bothered about the Warcraft portal) - add similar sets of links to ease navigation? I'll try to add more myself, of course, but it'd be better for someone with strong interests in the subject of a portal, who would know what other disciplines are relevant, could make the additions. The code is as follows:

<p style="clear:both; margin-top:-10px; margin-bottom:0.5em; font-variant: small-caps; text-align: center; font-size: 105%;"> [[Portal:Archaeology|Archaeology]] | [[Portal:Architecture|Architecture]] | [[Portal:Egyptology|Egyptology]] | [[Portal:Greece|Greece]] | [[Portal:Italy|Italy]] | [[Portal:Language|Language]] | [[Portal:Literature|Literature]] | [[Portal:Mythology|Mythology]] | [[Portal:Rhetoric|Rhetoric]] </p>

--Nema Fakei 12:55, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

It's probably better to follow the Subportal and Related portals layout being implemented on portals. For example, Portal:Geography has regional subportals (Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, North America and Oceania). These subportals in turn have country subportals. Portal:Europe, for example, had Portal:United Kingdom as a subportal which has subportals for its constituent nations as well as Portal:Ireland and Portal:Europe as related portals.--cj | talk 06:54, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
The problem with that layout (as it appears to me, at least) is that many portals simply don't have sections like that, and where they do, there's no standard location on the page. Plus, in any given portal, you then have the top-level portals in one place, the subportals in another, and the related portals in yet another: is it not more intuitive for sub- and related portals to occupy the same space as the top-level portals?--Nema Fakei 11:50, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Portal:South Park

Just discovered this hiding in the portal space. Have nominated it for deletion, see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:South Park, since there is no meaningful content, and it's not a broad topic. Is it worth getting a speedy criterion for portals so as to quickly deal with portals which have no meaningful content and haven't been edited for ate least a month, say? Hiding talk 13:11, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair Use images in Portals?

Are they allowed? It is an interesting question since the policy is kinda of vague on that point. Portals are like the main wikipedia page and it uses fair use images. But some portals have fair use images while others don't. So what does everyone think? Jedi6-(need help?) 15:14, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Also does it matter where the image is used. Is it ok to be added along with a part of a selected article? Jedi6-(need help?) 15:24, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I'd say probably not, although an argument could be made for their use. For example, selected article sections are really just snippets of articles where fair use might be justifiable. Are they in turn able to invoke fair use?--cj | talk 06:58, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't know. I always thought portals go under the same rules as the main Wikipedia page. The problem is some portals are devoid of any fair use images while others are filled with them. Since no one has ever made a big deal of it I assumed it to be ok, but I have no clue. Jedi6-(need help?) 07:03, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
If you can make a fair use claim, use it. Selected articles can be accompanied by images if the image's use is supported by the accomanying text. Regarding running copyrighted pictures as selected pictures, they would need a very well written caption detailing usage of the picture and how the subject is important to the portal topic. For example, an image of Roger Federer would be fair use at Portal:Tennis because he is currently the men's world number one, as long as the caption quantified that: The above image is of Rogere Federer, taken at Wimbledon where he won hos third championship. Federer is currently the number one player in the world on the men's tour, and his play has led John McEnroe, amongst others, to declare him "the most gifted player that I've ever seen in my life." [1] Hiding talk 09:50, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Help portal:norway

Help me!

The design of Portal:Norway has suddenly gone wild and I cannot fix it. I would really appreciate if someone fixed it, as I get little or no help from the other members of WikiProject Norway. I guess I am just really stupid, but if you would mind telling me how I could fix it...Won't bother you much. Ehjort 00:00, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

It's fixed. You had unclosed div mark-up (which was un-necessary in the circumstance) in your selected picture box.--cj | talk 02:07, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Tanks a lot Ehjort 06:24, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals

Just set this up as a project of similar scope to the stub sorting project. Participants welcome. The first task is probably to trawl through the portal space and see what's in there, see Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Portals for more details. Hiding talk 11:18, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, although I think this page has always sort of served as a WikiProject.

Page overhaul

I've just started the page overhaul, which has long been requested. I hope to split off the instructions to separate pages once the proposals mechanism is confirmed.--cj | talk 04:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Browsebar on the top of portals

{{browsebar}} shows up at the top of 159 portals, for example see Portal:Harry Potter or Portal:U.S. Roads. I don't quite its relevance in there, and I think any useful information is already contained in the {{portals}} bar at the bottom of portals, where it is also less intrusive. I would think that portals would look better with the browsebar removed from the top of portals. Comments on this are appreciated. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:39, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

The only way in which I find it useful is that it links to the top-ten portals. As portals are arranged by hierarchy, it is useful to be able to return to the origin portal. I would support removing all Wikipedia-specific links (FAQ, Help and whatnot) from the browse bar.--cj | talk 04:54, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, I nominated it for deletion. That may attract more discussion. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:01, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I think that was a somewhat premature action. It would have been better if time was allowed to work out a compromise here.--cj | talk 11:44, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, I had no reply for three days, and I did not see your above comment in time. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:44, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough.--cj | talk 05:47, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Any user who is looking at a portal needs be able to easily find related portals which may be more relevant or specific. Moreover, the way in which portals are liked should be consistent between portals and between types of links. That means both subportals (Portal:Sports and games should link to all sports portals in the same way that Portal:Religion links to religions) and related portals (Portal:Film should link to Portal:Television in the same way as Portal:Ancient Germanic culture and Portal:Germany). Further, all inter-portal links should be kept together. At the moment, portals can have subportals in one place, related portals in another, the top level portals in the browsebar at the top, and the {{portals}} at the bottom. And every portal can be different.
My personal preference is that we keep the browsebar, perhaps modify it so the first line is replaced by the {{portals}} bar, but (as per Portal:Classical Civilisation) encourage other portals to add to it, so that all the portal--specific links are kept to three lines on each portal, and we don't have to use things like Portal:Philosophy, which has the entire list of all portals. A simple, consistent layout is less intrusive than the hundreds of variations we have throughout the portals at present.--Nema Fakei 11:10, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
And whatever bar is decided, it need not be on the very top, unless it is just one line long, as it is very distracting otherwise.
The current {{portals}} template links to the list of all portals, grouped nicely, which is very easy to browse that way. I think that should be enough to relate a given portal to other portals. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:16, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Linking to portals from articles

I wasn't sure whether to put this discussion here or in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals, but in the end I put it there. Readers here might be interested to hop over to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Linking to portals from articles and contribute. Stephen Turner (Talk) 12:12, 10 April 2006 (UTC)